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> ... keep my own local modifications private, if I'm not distributing the software (but only using that software locally to provide a network service). Nuance

> ... keep my own local modifications private, if I'm not distributing the software (but only using that software locally to provide a network service). Nuance: The AGPL allows you to keep your modifications private _if you're not distributing the software_. It simply considers over-the-network usage as "distribution". That is how it defines it, in the legal text. This makes sense in many cases, where software is written primarily or solely for the purposes of providing network services. Authors of such software need a way to define network access as "distribution", and they have the AGPL for such software. > I believe that software freedom includes the right to ... Similarly, the permissive-licenses camp also believes software freedom includes the right to some things that the copyleft camp does not provide. Fundamentally, it comes down to a tradeoff: between the rights of a developer and the rights of an end-user. The permissive-licenses spirit places the former over the latter, and the copyleft spirit does it the other way. But in both cases, software freedom is maintained, even if for at most one type of persons. Sadly, it is logically impossible to maintain software freedom for both developers and end-users.

bombcar 6y ago
How precisely is "over the network" defined? If I browse a website that has a Varnish cache in front of Apache running Wordpress am I using all three? Just one? If I upload a file via FTP and later a cron-job runs and processes that file via a software package and I later download the result did I interact with the "software package" in such a way as to count as over-the-network?
- aflag 6y ago
  I don’t think there are clear cut answers. It has to be tried in court. The desire of the creator is sort of obvious, the discussion will be whether the creator can set that as a condition to use their IP or not. EULAs are a thing, so I wouldn’t dismiss the license so easily.

bombcar 6y ago

How precisely is "over the network" defined? If I browse a website that has a Varnish cache in front of Apache running Wordpress am I using all three? Just one? If I upload a file via FTP and later a cron-job runs and processes that file via a software package and I later download the result did I interact with the "software package" in such a way as to count as over-the-network?

aflag 6y ago
I don’t think there are clear cut answers. It has to be tried in court. The desire of the creator is sort of obvious, the discussion will be whether the creator can set that as a condition to use their IP or not. EULAs are a thing, so I wouldn’t dismiss the license so easily.